The Ultimate Direct Mail Checklist (1,121 words)

3.) If you put your deadline date too far into the future, it will invite procrastination and have little power; if you set it too soon after the drop the offer may arrive after the deadline, which means you've wasted the entire effort.

4.) Lasering the names of winners on a form that shows through a big window on the outer envelope is the current template.

5.) Never include a business reply envelope with a sweeps offer. You will be paying postage for replies from people who enter the sweeps but buy no product. You will increase the response, but you can go broke doing it.

6.) $1.00 or 99¢. If the offer is a bill-me, try 99¢.

7.) Don't promise savings in percentages; savings should always be given in money. The only percentage most people understand is 50 percent, and in that case, I prefer "half price" or, better, "buy one, get one free."

—Axel Andersson

8.) YES, NO and MAYBE stickers give choices. The question: will a NO sticker result in more YESes and MAYBEs to more than offset the cost of return postage on the NOs? Many mailers are simply using MAYBE which is non-threatening.

9.) Canadian designer Ted Kikoler maintains that for maximum effect, a sticker with copy on it should be placed over other copy.

10.) The letter is personal correspondence from "me" to "you." The minute you use "we," "us" and "ours," you are speaking on behalf of others, thereby losing any sense of a one-to-one communication.